These Yankees stress tests are the ones champions must survive

Every champion has to figure out how to wiggle through games just like these two.There is no EZ Pass booth to the Canyon of Heroes, no passing lane to zip past the anxieties of October.

In a couple of weeks, maybe you’ll be able to laugh about Thursday afternoon and Friday evening. In a couple of weeks, if you’re lining the streets of lower Manhattan and Mark Leiter Jr.passes by on a float, you’ll be able to shout your thanks for a most improbable October helper, same as you will the stalwarts: Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto.

By then, maybe your heart won’t be in your throat. But get used to it.This is October.

This is the toll.This is the surtax for the ticker-tape showers to come. “I want a ring,” Stanton said after the Yankees survived this 8-6 torture chamber of a win over the Guardians, a day after the 7-5 Cleveland win that had given the Yankees something to think about, something to maybe fret about. This is how you get that ring.

You have to figure out how to endure.You have to figure out how to survive.

Sometimes you have to figure out how to put a devastating loss behind you, and the only way you can do it is to skip out of the way of another devastating loss. History is written by the victors. And World Series are won for the survivors. “We were trying to get to the finish line,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “and I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to get there.” Sometimes you have to make it up as you go along.Sometimes you have to improvise.

That’s the other thing about October.The moment you’re sure you know how a script is going to resolve itself, that’s when red flags and red herrings start to litter the pages.

That’s when it gets hairy.And that’s when it gets fun. Soto had given the Yankees a quick 2-0 lead with a homer that swiftly separated them from the memory of Thursday’s calamity.

Austin Wells reported for offensive duty for the first time, adding a solo shot.And then, someh...